A HOARDER OF SMALL THINGS

I am a hoarder of small things with plain stories to tell 

if you look closely enough. How that one lone yellow die, 

buried in the dirt—its lost mates, long gone—

still hankered for the darkness of the leather liar’s cup 

that tumped down on the mahogany bar like a fist

at Speck McAuliffe‘s Lagunitas Lodge. He rolled the dice.

The long mahogany bar was my runway, sticky as flypaper, 

where I could crawl and observe the adults up close. 

My aunts, thirsty after picking berries in the creek,

amid sizzling crickets and relentless summer heat, 

nursed tall Tom Collinses garnished with lime, while I

was thinking of the pies that my grandmother would make.

And Old Pete, the last real cowboy, a mule skinner,

perched on a stool at the end of the bar that no one dared use, 

rolled his cigarettes one-handed, and lived out back 

in a Slipstream, with his strawberry roan in a makeshift corral.

And Speck wiping down the bar with a threadbare rag,

told stories punctuated by a nasal Boston drone 

by way of the Mission, like a politician or petty king.

Those ivory dice decided the transitory fate of so many, 

from who was going to buy the next round, calling out

from snake eyes to boxcars, was there enough time 

to knock back another one, or to leave the wife behind?

After all, it was midday. In the cavernous darkness of that bar, 

time itself was suspended. On leave. But no one ever turned 

down the politics of a free boilermaker or a whiskey neat.

I listened to their unfinished stories that bled like old wounds, 

ate the odd snack of stick matches or cigarette butts, seeds  

that even Pete’s mean old green parrot, rejected.

He swore like a sailor every time that liar’s cup hit the bar, 

and churlishly rejected my childish offerings,

no matter how carefully I tried to disguise them 

amid the hulls of sunflower seeds. His baleful yellow eyes

like small suns followed me as he edged closer 

to grab my finger, his black leathery tongue 

and cruel beak seeking revenge on all humankind.

8/10 Write On! Susie Terence 

• See part 1, The collector

Speck's Bar: Family Watering Hole

During the holidays, when the aunts and uncles gathered at my grandmother's house, invariably, it meant a visit to Speck's Lagunitas Tavern on Sir Francis Drake Boulevard. I spent many an hour crawling the length of that mahogany bar (and sampling cigarette buts) as a toddler. During the late 1950s, pretty much all social life revolved around the bar.

Speck (Frank) McAuliffe was an old friend of the family, from the San Francisco days. His daughter, Lauretta McAuliffe, my mother's best friend, was my godmother. With his Mission Irish accent, Speck sounded like Archie Bunker, and looked like a gnome, smoking like a chimney, tamping the black leather liar's dice cup down on the bar with aplomb. Snake eyes! Someone called. Whoever lost bought the round. Frank's barback was an old friend, Skip, a cablecar brakeman who hobbled about on bad feet from jumping out of the cable cars.

Pat Mcauliffe (Decker), my aunts Jane and Toddy (Kathleen) Reilly

We've got some modeling photos of Speck's other daughter Patricia McAuliffe Decker, who was also a bartender at Speck's, with my aunts, when they were young, pouring Cook's Champagne. (My aunt Jane was the famous Gallo girl, before it was Gallo. You saw renderings of her on the back of every newspaper and magazine during the 50s.)



I've a great photo  from the early 60s, of my grandmother, aunt, and Cal Davis at a crab cioppino feed in the dining room. Speck, or was it Skip who had a big green parrot that ate sunflower seeds and swore like a pirate in the dining room. He liked carrots and children's fingers, as I can attest.

Speck owned the Lagunitas post office building too. His daughter, Pat McAuliffe & George Decker lived upstairs (before the downstairs was turned into a post office—not sure where it was before that. At Lacy's Lagunitas store?) My mother and father also lived next door for a short while.

Note how it’s Speck, with a k. His real name was Frank.

The Lagunitas Lodge was also a livery stable when Speck (or rather his wife—what was her name?) bought it. When the the livery stable burned down, Old Pete Stone, the last real cowboy, who was once a mule skinner, and a sailor, or merchant marine, was the last of a generation. He lived in a Slipstream trailer behind Speck's bar where the old Mariposa Dance Pavilion once stood, and kept his equally old strawberry roan horse, Lightfoot, over by Tanzi's place.

Old Pete’s lean body was a testament of spending a lifetime on horseback, he was bow-legged as they come. Freckled skin weathered raw from a lifetime of strong sun and stronger whiskey. He must’ve been fair haired, perhaps he was a redhead, with startling blue eyes. Don’t know his backstory, like where he was from, only fragments gleaned from dry silver mines. How did he come to live behind Speck’s? Did Speck inherit from the last owner? Now all the people who would know the backstory are gone.

Sometimes Old Pete would saddle up the old roan and ride on over to the Forest Knolls Saloon when he was in need of a change in watering holes. Don’t know why he’d switch bars, he lived behind one. The horse was always resplendent—decked in tooled leather and silver saddle and bridle. Old Pete slouched down in the saddle, a real low rider, with his battered cowboy hat and worn chaps that had both seen better day. He could roll cigarettes one-handed.

Feilim on Tangerine

I've an old photo of my uncle Feilim on a painted horse in front of the livery stable. The horses were wintered on our property. So our family (eight kids) grew up on horseback.

Toddy on Baby Snooks, & my mom

Only one horse lived on in infamy. Baby Snooks, a big black horse with a big blaze, and splashy white feet, stood at 16 hands at the withers, but he was a handful, and famously mean, but everyone in my family rode him anyway.

Chiquita, my rescue horse from the glue factory, was originally from the livery stables—she was a horse my mom rode. But Chuquita was mine, all mine. She was my salvation, my way out. My escape from the valley.


see also
Speck McAuliffe's Bar Burned Down

I really should combine the two posts. Clearly I'm not done with it yet.

Lost Car Keys

After too many beers in the hot sun at Shafter's swimming hole,  my uncles and aunts, and various friends would gather up at my grandmother's house. Eventually someone needed to leave—perhaps they were planning to go back to the City, or head on down to Speck McAulliffe's Lagunitas Lodge, to quaff a few, when they discovered they couldn't find the car keys. Anywhere. They looked under pillows, in the couch cracks. In the dirt driveway. Nada.

So they all hoofed it on down to Speck's. Had another beer or two. The lost car keys were a mystery. They never showed up next morning. But sometimes extra beer bottle caps did. Quarters went missing. They blamed each other. Then there was the matter of the cars sans keys to deal with, not to mention the hangover. Luckily there was always hot-wiring—something my uncles were very good at. And they were on their way.

All those lost car keys remained a mystery. Until my brother and I came along and kicked apart an abandoned woodrat nest in the upper garden by the old bottle dump. We found a time capsule of coins, church keys, and car keys galore. By that time those old cars were history, as were a couple of my uncles. Useless keys to another time. Nothing to unlock, except this fragment.

7/10/2013
rev. 10/22/2015

Old Photo Found in the Woodrat Nest

Horse Chestnuts

If I hadn't met Sweet Old Bob, if I hadn't gone to Europe for the summer of my 19th year, I would've been Edie Lehman's permanent rider. We were showing quite a bit locally and I was supposed to show horses for Rafter L Ranches at the California State fair in Sacramento.

But first love, and Europe beckoned. Edie said, Well, have a nice life. It didn't quite work out that way. But how was I to know?

I was always pretty good rider, having worked my way up via all sorts of sundry ungulates. Donkeys, ponies, Mr. Smits, the runty steer, and any ornery horse that no one else wanted to ride, as I didn't have one of my own—so I was the local charity case. 

When I was about 12, Nick Kobseff and my aunt Canice saved Chiquita, a bright bay horse with a long back, long enough for three skinny girls to climb aboard—from the glue factory. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven—no matter that my MOTHER used to ride her as a girl!

Chiquita was originally from the defunct Lagunitas livery stable at Speck McAuliffe's Lagunitas Lodge—my family used to winter-board their horses. Baby Snooks was another livery war veteran who lived down the road. I remember him, but never rode him—we've photos of my mom and aunt with him. Big temperamental fellah. Mean too. He’d grab your shoulder in his jaws and shake you like a rat. Like Brandy, the Tennessee saddlebred who lived at Rautio’s place.

My grannie said that her father, Michael Walsh in Bantry, was something of a horse whisperer. So I guess it runs in the family. Certainly the love of horses ran deep.

In those days, there were few people with horse trailers out in the valley, so the old horses tended to circulate from family to family like old coinage. Sometimes a neighbor needed to borrow a "lawnmower" to mow down the spring grass before it became a fire hazard. And if the horse decided he liked his new digs better, he often stayed on. That's how I wound up with an extra pony or two. Nobody in town wanted our old horses. No papers, long in tooth, not a prestige kind of thing.

Owning horses was a habit that died harder for some than for others. Old Pete, one of the last cowboys, who used to take care of all those livery horses when my aunts and uncles were kids, out of long habit, kept a strawberry roan named Lightfoot, in a lean-to on the old railroad bed next to the Tanzis in Lagunitas.

Old Pete'd slouch down on that even older roan gelding and ride into Forest Knolls to the local watering hole, the Forest Knolls Lodge. Pete could roll a cigarette one-handed. He must've been a rodeo cowboy at one point—he had a showy tooled saddle and bridle with reins trimmed with silver rings.

After the bars closed, the old horse always got Pete home to his shiny silver slipstream trailer parked in the greasewood behind Speck McAuliffe's bar—why he didn't drink at Speck's was a mystery. But that bar was within waking distance—not that Pete walked much—bis legs were too bowed. Maybe the ride was the thing.

Don't know if the old roan horse had to sleep in his saddle and bridle after he delivered Old Pete to his doorstep after a night on the town or if Pete took care of the horse on auto-pilot. You could say we grew up at the end of an era. Horsecrazy came with the turf.

I used to win all the trick riding at the local gymkhanas—spear rings with a lance at a full gallop, dollar race—you had to do all these maneuvers bareback with a dollar under your knee. Last one standing sort of thing. Piece a cake for me as I usually rode bareback as I couldn't afford a saddle.

We did slaloms with poles, barrel racing, and other odd things too—keyhole, relay races, Totally forgot about all that stuff. We were insane little kids. No fear.

One year, I got all fired up by the trick riders at the Grand National—my aunt Jane took me the first year, I saved up all my pennies to go each year—getting into as many events as possible. But, one small difference, they use saddles, saddlepads, or circingles for a reason! Something to grab onto. I didn't get that part. Couldn't afford it.

I was working my way up to a full liberty stand at a full gallop up the Stone’s driveway, sans saddlepad, of course. The horse made an exit, stage right, I went sailing forward. Trajectory became a real concept. It cut my trick riding career short. Also put a dent in my skull.

Supporting a horse on babysitting money at 25 cents an hour was a tough proposition—as things did go wrong. There was the annual worming, and shoeing—I rarely had enough money for that—my horses often went barefoot. Then you had to buy winter feed—horses couldn't survive on grass year round. It all added up. Colic was a real killer. I was in debt to my veterinarian until I was in my 20s—long after the last horse died.

My canny horses had overdeveloped upper lips—practically the same thing as opposable thumbs—they could untie ropes and slip padlock hinges with bolts too. The horses and ponies were regular little Houdinis—especially the ponies. They loved to go on midnight raids. Kept me busy. (At one point I had four ravenous ponies full of themselves).

They would get into my garbage cans that I had converted into feed bins—that's where I kept the oats and molasses pellets. Nothing excites a horse more than the tiny pitter-patter of oats falling into a bucket.

Even the deer joined in to raid my precious feed stash. Sometimes I'd find all my haybales gotten into during the night, turned into vast swirly nests—with all the grain at the epicenter, gone.

So I wrapped the hay in tarps laden with booby traps and stuck long spike nails through rims of the garbage cans but the critters would work the nails loose. It was clearly a challenge the were up to. Game on.

At least the rattling trashcans falling over in the middle of the night was an early warning signal. If the horses overate, I'd have to walk them a bit. Luckily nobody ever foundered—they'd get niacin flush sweats from eating too much grain, and became champion fartists from all the excess gas, but at least they didn't explode.

I finally moved the feed to our basement for safekeeping, That worked out swimmingly for a while—even if it meant it was a longer trek to the corral. Until Chiquita decided to help herself to a little early breakfast. Which meant she not only had escaped from the corral, she had gotten the basement door open too with those prehensile lips. The basement was a real mess, as she'd broken open several bales of hay and fluffed it all up into a billowing sea of hay.

Winky the cat loved to perch on Chiquita's back when she was grazing, so he thought this was an unusual opportunity to hang out with his friend. Well, he jumped up on her back, and she KNEW she wasn't supposed to be in the basement, so she started bucking. Busted by the cat.

I nearly peed my pants, I was laughing so hard. Winky was a little perplexed. He'd never been bucked off a horse before—so, of course, he held on with his claws like a champion bull rider, which merely upped the ante.

I thought the horse was going to kick the basement windows out. Shelves on books went flying this way and that as she squealed and took off for the corral with the cat on her back, clamped on tighter than a tick, his head weaving like a seasick bobble toy while he was planning his exit. He never dreamed he could travel that fast. It took them a long while to patch up their friendship.

What my grannie didn't know was that Chiquita loved coming in the house to say hello and maybe swipe a drink from the kitchen sink. Or browse the sugar bowl, or the fruit bowl on the table. So I guess the basement raid was an extension of that. My horse clearly made house calls.

She was a very curious horse, taking it all in. You could just see her gears working. So this is their corral. She walked cautiously, crouched down like a slinky cat. She picked up her hooves funny as if she was walking in a creekbed, as each step resounded like a hollow drum on the tiled floor. Kathump, thump, thump. She kept her head down with her ears splayed cautiously, as the ceiling was a little too low for her liking.

One time she popped her head into the front door, saw us on the couch and ambled in for a visit. She lipped the newspapers on the table, nosed the teapot, cursilory sniffed at the couches, and decided to explore the rest of the house. The bedrooms didn't interest her, but the bathroom, like the kitchen, was worthy of deeper exploration. She was on a mission.

It was late summer, we always saved our bathwater to dump it down the toilet as the spring ran low, come August. Of course, she thought that too was for her! Unfortunately it was the culmination of three people's conjoined weekly baths: My grannie, me, and my brother. Very brothy. She took a slurp and realized she couldn't back out. It took some negotiating as the bathroom was the size of a single horse trailer.

I don't think Chiquita quite knew she was a horse. She was very gentle and very curious about how we lived. It could've been because of her advance age, that she was so calm and we could do things with her that you wouldn't dream of doing with an any other horse. Or she was just unusual.

When I think back—she could've freaked out in the bathroom and done some real damage. How would I ever explain why there was a horse stuck in the tub? Or get her out if she broke a leg? No way to get a crane in the bathroom to hoist her out.

There just ain't any amount of creative lying strong enough to ameliorate that one. I eventually got busted when she stepped on the front doorstoop and it tore off. I tried nailing it back on with spikes but it was skewed at an angle.

My old friend, Chiquita eventually died at an advanced age—she must've been 35 or more. She just laid down in the middle of her dinner hay pile and went to sleep. Frost had settled on her during the night, and steam rose from in the morning but she was cold. No breath. No amount of nudging from Winky the cat would rouse her. The glue factory knackers got her after all. I was devastated. 

The old adage, if you get thrown from a horse, the only cure is to get back on the horse. In my case, a different horse. To ameliorate my grief, a neighbor bought me another horse from the Olema Stables. Becky Dart, a bright sorrel penny who was related to Dart Bar and the famous thoroughbred, Three Bars. She had Preakness and Derby winners on both sides. A real hotrod—not like Chiquita.

She was the fastest horse in the San Geronimo Valley at the quarter mile. We rode like the wind down the old railroad bed through Samuel P. Taylor Park. Always bareback. All that fire and muscles churning under my thighs.

My second horse died the summer before I went to Europe. It would've killed me to have to sell my mare. Selling the ponies was easy—they were such little monsters—always getting out and into trouble. But my mare was like a sister I never had.

Becky Dart was in spring pasture—at a neighbor's field. The Bianchi's. I checked on her after school and she was fine. But I had a hunch something was wrong and went back to check on her after dinner and found her down and sweating. Nothing should've gone wrong, but it did.

Becky Dart (my last horse)—she died of colic—that's how I hooked up as Edie Lehman's rider. She died in Edie's arena—after a long, violent struggle. 

I walked that horse for 18 hours straight, but she'd twisted her colon—most likely it had ruptured, peritonitis had set in, and she was going insane rearing up and throwing herself all over the place. Bashing into walls. Screaming uneathrly cries that tore you asunder. No way to save her. We had to put her down. A long needle to the heart. I couldn't watch. It devastated me.

Working with Edie at the training stables eased the pain and loss a bit. But I never got attached to them—except maybe Namûn, the Arab gelding. When you have so much horse, there's so much more to love. I never wanted to be that close to a horse again. 

Sweet Old Bob was a real SOB, but I didn't yet know it. It would take me nearly seven years to get the lesson right. I vowed to never let a man get between me and my horses again. Besides, horses are always a better ride.

Speck McAuliffe's Bar Burned Down

Lagunitas Lodge 1910

Someone on the Facebook Lost Marin page posted a new photo of Speck McAuliffe's bar that I'd never seen before. When Speck's bar burned down in January of 1983, an institution was lost.

My family knew Frank "Speck" McAuliffe from way back when in San Francisco days. He was a retired cop, or was it fireman? His wife bought the place with a nest egg she had saved up after the Depression, my grandmother said.  

 

As a baby, I crawled on the mahogany bar—and on the disgustingly dirty floors, and ate cigarette butts. I graduated to Shirley Temples, then Irish coffee. It was my family's watering hole. They had been friends with Speck—that is, Frank—for 2 generations. His daughter Loretta, was my godmother. Her sister Pat Decker, was one scary bartender.

We don't know who owned the bar or what it was called before Frank bought the Lagunitas Lodge. But we have a photo of my uncle Feilim on Tangerine the blue-eyed pinto, in front of Mariposa Pavilion (a dance hall) that was behind the tavern. It must've burned down before I was born.

Or perhaps a part of it was turned into Speck's home. But I think their home was the 2nd story over the lodge itself. You can see it in the top photo. What's amazing is that part of the old rock pillar fence from 1910, survives to this day. My grandfather bought three lots in Lagunitas, so he would've been familiar with this bar, ca 1910.

Feilim on Tangerine ca 1940, he died ca. 1945, Mariposa sign is to the left

There was a livery stable out back as well. Our family boarded the livery stable horses over the winter and my aunts and uncles rode them in summer. Baby Snooks and my glue factory horse, Chiquita, were refugee horses from the livery stable that spanned two generations.

I remember Old Pete Stone, the last real cowboy, used to ride Lightfoot, his strawberry roan down to the Forest Knolls Lodge (the misnamed Papermill Creek Saloon as it's on the San Geronimo/Creamery Creek, not Papermill Creek) for a drink at the Forest Knolls Lodge, and he could roll a cigarette one-handed. 

That horse was decked out in a heavily tooled saddle and bridle loaded with pounds of silver. Pete was something to behold. His lariat was made of plaited horsehair. Was he a rodeo rider at one point? Geoff Davis said: Pete Stone was a teamster and a mule skinner. My dad told me that he liked real people, he liked your granny a lot. Genuine article, at any rate, just like Frank.

Geoff later added: Yes, Pete Stone, he was a sailor [earing] and a mule skinner, his painting/ relics burned when MT torched Speck’s.

Old Pete took care of the rental horses. When they were all sold off, he lived in an old Slipstream trailer hidden in the greasewood out back of the lodge. He made Pat Decker's daughter, Maryanne a thin ring out of an old silver dime, but he was also a dirty old man, always wanted to "play house" with Maryanne and me. We were warned off of him by Maryanne's mother, Pat.

For a short time, when my family was a real modern fifties unit, replete with mother father, child, we lived next door to Pat Decker in Frank's apartments over the Lagunitas post office. Pat was Frank's daughter, and Frank's main barkeeper. Pat's sister, Loretta, my absentee godmother, who looked a little bit like Elizabeth Taylor, lived in San Anselmo.

Lagunitas Lodge, and boarding house , ca 1910

Pat was married to George Decker, who was a powder monkey out at McNear's rock quarry. First time I ever saw sticks of dynamite was in the trunk of George's car. He'd come home all covered with rock dust, looking like an animated cement statue with bloodshot blue eyes. George was from Arkansas so he talked funny. They later moved to Woodacre and Maryanne and I grew apart.

Someone said the post office and the apartments burned down in early '70's, I was living in Forest Knolls. You'd think I would've remembered that. But Roberta Tanzi said 1972 or 73 was the second time that place caught fire, and the 3rd time was the night before Easter, 1988. Anthony Chatham, who lived in one of the apartments, said the fire was right before Christmas, in 1972.

The apts. also burned in 83, we lived in the far right one. Roberta Tanzi photo

However the fire started (Joey Tanzi has a different story), there was already a string of arsons where all the historic buildings in Lagunitas and Forest Knolls were torched. We definitely had a firebug. The old saloon and ice cream parlour in Lagunitas was amazing. We have some of the Hawaiian Kanaka cane chairs from it. Huge carved gilt mirror, mahogany bar. Rumor has it that when Barbara Scott owned it, it was torched for the fire insurance.

Half of the downtown Forest Knolls (across from the bar) was a series of wooden buildings with a roof overhang and wooden sidewalks that creaked. Even hitching posts outside. Very western. Very authentic, and very flammable. My childhood history went up in smoke—a restless firebrand who just couldn’t leave it alone.

I lost touch with Maryanne years ago. We spent so much time at Speck's bar, it was a home away from home. All cinder and ash now. 

Speck McAuliffe's Irish Coffee  by F M Palinski, 1984

This was from rough notes, and was extensively revised 8/24/2015, but the original impetus came from 8/11/11, so I filed it here. I need to come up with a better name, or perhaps combine the two blog posts. Meanwhile.... minor revisions 12/17

See also
Speck's Bar: Family Watering Hole (2014)

Sutton & Tristano

I stumbled upon a Facebook thread by a Lagunitas School classmate, Kevin McConnell, who posted a link to Pete Sutton's dad, Ralph Sutton. I'd totally forgotten that Ralph, who tickled a mean Maple Leaf Rag in his time, played some of his famous stride piano compositions at a school assembly concert when we were all very young. But after Kevin posted it, minute fragments drifted back from the imperfectly shelved memories of childhood.

What I did remember, was, being surprised to hear such a complex arrangement of chords and cartoon music churning out of the cranky old school piano. Magic music from a strange man dressed in a gray suit who looked more like a school principal (or maybe Willy Loman from Death of a Salesman) than a famous jazz musician. Kevin said that the jazz concert inspired him to become a musician. Me, not so much.

And the vague memory fragment of that concert goes a long way in explaining why my classmate Pete Sutton's best friend, Steve Tristano, was standing on the piano bench banging out a rollicking Boogie-Woogie on the piano at recess. We were all rockin' out. That music was so radically different than the somber proscribed chords of the  America, the Beautiful. The teacher, hearing the infernal ruckus, came bursting into the classroom, apoplectic. We were all so busted.

From this incident, I learned that certain types of music was forbidden, therefore delicious. I also feared our 2nd grade teacher, Mrs. Burge, was going to have heart failure right in front of us. I'd never seen such a show of emotion from our right-proper 50s school-marm teacher.

There was always a lot of counterculture going on in the San Geronimo Valley in the late 1950s, and early 60s. But we were so young and we knew no other life—living out so far from the towns and the growing suburbs. Many famous musicians and artists and writers took refuge in The Valley as the Marin Beat scene havens, including Mill Valley and the former fishing village of Sausalito, were beginning to erode into the effluent of mainstream acceptability.

Steve was born with his musical talent. Our 2nd grade Boogie-Woogie champ was the son of another famous jazz musician, Lennie Tristano. But great jazz musicians were also absenteé fathers—always on the road—or more notably playing the clubs in New York, where the real action was.

So to see Ralph Sutton was unusual as it was to see the blind piano player, Lennie Tristano. People often lumped Sutton & Tristano's names together, and said that they were famous jazz musicians in New York. But in retrospect, I can't imagine such a synthesis as they were both such very different musicians.

A bit of San Geronimo Valley apocrypha: Scott Joplin (with whom I share a birthdate) was said to have visited the Valley in the 1890s, and allegedly wrote Maple Leaf Rag at Frank "Speck" McAuliffe's bar in Lagunitas.

Don't know if there's any truth to the story—other than countless would-be ragtime piano players have banged out that archetypal ragtime hottie on every available piano in the Valley. But chances are pretty good Scott Joplin hammered out a rendition of it at Speck's. What was the bar called before Speck McAuliffe bought the place since this was before his time—Lagunitas Tavern & Livery?

Before you go, Whoa there, Nellie! Teddy Roosevelt had a cabin in Lagunitas—Argentina House—and used to water at the Lagunitas trough when he got all hot and bothered. And Joplin was no stranger to The Valley. (Nor were José Revere (Paul's kin), or Alexander Graham Bell—who set up the first telephone in the Dollar barn on Dickson Ranch.)

Teddy Roosevelt liked The Valley for its wildness and isolation. He famously exclaimed, "When I am in California, I am not in the West, I am west of the West."

Another Boogie-Woogied classmate, Adair (Lara) Daley once dubbed The Valley in her SF Chronicle column as The Valley that Time Forgot. Growing up in West Marin, we were all so far west of the west, we met ourselves coming and going. Often shunned by the townies, we were our own universe.

Integration Games ('Lupe)

‘Lupe turned out so beautiful it made your eyes hurt, with her blue-black hair, honey-colored skin and green cat eyes all turned up at the corners with lashes that threatened to put Maybeline right out of business. But then, I hadn’t seen her since eighth grade when her family moved away from the Valley after her uncle Dean died. So strange seeing her working at the health clinic like that, after all these years. Not exactly a place you want to run into a long lost best friend. Not too many families from our end of the Valley ever escaped ’cause no one ever seemed to have two dimes to rub together, let alone, two month’s rent in a row—especially in winter when work was scarce.

Over the Hill, the idea of Town was another country, another state of mind most of us were incapable of traversing. The Valley, with its rural poverty and geographic isolation was practically a third-world country by comparison. White’s Hill was always threatening to slip at the pass after heavy rain and the townies, they just kept away, afraid they’d slip off into the ravine, or worse, into poverty, as if it was the clap or something. The old timers always said the pavement at the pass was over 50 feet thick and that was before it dropped another 5 feet during the big storm in the Fall of ’64. So the townies, they mostly kept away, which was fine by us, except they called us Valley Rats just to even up the score.

And if the National Seashore hadn’t happened with LadyBird Johnson and all, I bet we’d still be cut off from the world. Instead, we prepared for mass invasions each weekend, but the townies, they never stopped, they never bought anything at the Little Store, or at the House of Richard—that’s a hippie store in Forest Knolls—or DeLacy’s Store in Lagunitas.

They say Darryl Wilburn mostly burned down the rest of both the villages—village is too big a word for where we lived— there wasn’t much left to stop for anyway—unless you needed gas at Urien’s gas station, which was coffee shop where you could get a candy bar, some smokes or a beer. By that time Darryl had burned down all the historic building and watering holes: Speck McAuliff's bar, The Little Store, the ice cream parlour. The only thing he didn't burn down was the Saloon, but it was made of stucco and a family later bought it, so it was a steadier source income than selling firewood.

There was also a garage at Uriel's where our school busses were repaired and a trailer park out back. The Uriels diversified—but the price of gas was too high even for the townies. But Don Uriel was fine to look at standing behind the bar in faded jeans and a white teeshirt choking down a cool one—even if he was old. He really looked like James Dean but if he fixed your car, there were extra parts left over.

I remember how I was so lonely that last year in grade school without ‘Lupe showing me the ropes like—how to rat your bangs. Or what happens if you throw a cherry bomb down the girl’s bathroom toilet and time the flush just right. ’Lupe was always explaining important things like that. Ratted bangs were where the older townie girls stored their arsenal, as she sprayed a half-can of Aqua Net on her bangs to keep them firmly anchored in place. They were frosted so stiff it was like a picture of the wire on top of the Berlin Wall in winter. We were all gearing up for the Big Move to high school Over the Hill. We were being bussed into new territory like those kids from Montgomery, Alabama, only we weren’t Black, we were just poor.

Talk about climbing over walls, I had to find out the hard way about the wall that also divided the Valley when I accidentally repeated to July about what I heard about Kathy Unterberg doing it and maybe being knocked up. I’d never been in a real fist-fight before. I refused, I didn’t want to hit her in the jaw; afraid it might break. It’s not like I didn’t know how, with my brother and all. I always got into more trouble if I hit his face. But she came at me like a watermill and I had no choice. I wasn’t mad at her, so my heart wasn’t in it. She was from Woodacre, you know—the snotty end of the Valley. I was glad ’Lupe wasn’t there to see me so humiliated.

I guess I was kinda jealous ‘cause Katrinka was going out with ‘Lupe’s cousin, Duane de la Ventana—who was to drop-dead-to-die-for gorgeous. July finked that secret out to the world too. Some friend she was. One step up from trailer trash, and living at the dividing line between San Geronimo and Woodacre, she was quickly figurin’ out what side of the Valley her bread was buttered on.

Duane, he was so gorgeous, I couldn’t wait for Thursdays after school—that was catechism day—when we all rode the bus down to St. Cecelia’s church together. He was so cool, he combed his hair just like Elvis. He was always patting his pompadour like it was a newborn baby, and admirin’ it in the mirror or in windows when he thought no one was looking.

Taydie Waverwick was absolutely nuts for Elvis too, she used to wear her hair like his too—which was confusing. She could croon every song he recorded but she was sorta weird with her big boobs and all. She always wore these cowgirl outfits with rhinestones and white go-go boots.

We used to speculate that Taydie's boobs were fake water balloons. She was big as a cow—not at all like Dolly Parton—and she wore rhinestone glasses to match. She used to pick on us runts until one day, in self defense, I accidentally punched her out in the boobs. I was cornered, no place to run—I was the fastest kid in the school. But like I said, I was cornered and I was too short to hit her in the jaw. I really expected them to pop, or something, but her eyes got all watery instead and I felt bad. Anyway, after that, she decided to be my friend. As long as she didn’t want to mash her lips on me it was OK, I guess.

That’s how I inherited the new girls, Phoebe and Elvie, as friends—through Taydie. I knew I was stepping down the evolutionary ladder a bit, but beggars can’t be choosers. Elvie and Eddie, the twins, had already been to Juvie a few times, and their mom was officially on welfare—we always knew who was on welfare on account of where they lived, down on Resaca Road where Papermill Creek always flooded in winter. What I didn’t know was many others were on welfare until much later. Folks was good at hiding things.

Phoebe talked funny ’cause she had a hare lip. She showed us the place where the hole in her palate was and then push some food through it just to gross us out. But sometimes after school, we’d all sit around as if we were good friends instead of accidental leftovers and we'd lip sing all the songs to Elvis’s albums: Don’t be cruel to a heart that’s true... I heard Taydie later became a cowboy singer in Vegas. I didn’t ask as to what sexual persuasion.

When I was younger, I especially loved going over to ‘Lupe’s house after school, her mom would make us the best fresh tortillas and there were always babies to play with. ‘Lupe smelled so fine, like the roses on her saint’s namesake. Her mom only used her whole name when she was real mad at ‘Lupe, which was almost never ’cause ‘Lupe was that kind of sweet. I hardly knew who saint Guada’Lupe was—other than the fact she had roses on her lap.

Once I was chosen for Queen of the May and had to climb up the altar and crown Mary’s head with roses so that sort of made ‘Lupe and me sisters under the skin. One time we both had wounds and so we sealed it with blood. Like with Katrinka. It seems there were always plenty of babies smelling like sour milk and poop, not roses—no matter whose house I was at.

‘Lupe’s mom was usually expecting, but then, so was Katrinka’s mom, Mrs. Larsen, there were 11 kids in her family and we always thought there was something not quite right about Beanie & Booboo. One of ’em fell on his head out of a car which didn’t improve things any.

Mrs. Walton also had 11 or 12 kids but they were all way older than us—except for Scotty, the baby—his brother Clark was old enough to be his father, and he was blind as a bat as well, but he could sing real good. Especially Peter, Paul & Mary songs. He never shaved and looked like a prophet right out of the Bible with his beard and baggy clothes and all—I guess he couldn’t see to shave and no one else wanted to do it for him.

His brothers used to lead Clark up and down the dirt roads—it was like Blind Man’s Bluff, but for real. I was especially confused by this as I once thought he might be related to Superman, and I thought that maybe he was faking at being blind ’cause he was really in disguise, you know, like Clark Kent.

The Waltons lived at the top of the ridge where Mount Barnabe joins up to the long ridge where I lived on the other side. You could go for miles on those ridges and never see a soul: Nicasio, Bolinas, even Fairfax, but to get to Mount Tam, you had to cross the ravine at Alpine Dam but the horses were too afraid of the bridge.

Sometimes, after school, I’d sneak up over the ridge on horseback over the fire road that connected our little Arroyo valley, off Barranca Road, where I lived, to the Walton’s place in Lagunitas— only there weren’t any lakes in Lagunitas, they were all at the other end of the Valley, the rich end, but our end, all the lakes were dried up and stingy—except for the one at Borrillo Ranch near the school.

After ‘Lupe moved, Duane’s family moved into the Borrillo Ranch for a while so I’d ride my horse past whenever I got a chance. When they moved to San Geronimo, it was harder to think up an excuse to ride by ’cause they lived at the end of the fire road. And if I did ride by, you know, casual-like, to be cool, but then I was stuck riding for several hours along Bolinas Ridge above Kent Lake to Lagunitas and then I had to double back on the next ridge just to get home ’cause you couldn’t get off the ridge in between, the ravines were so steep and besides, the scrub was impenetrable. And in fall, with the days growin’ shorter by the minute, there just wasn’t enough time after school to ride both ways and get home before dark. Forget about homework, you could hardly sit after that kinda ride.

Anyway, sometimes Mrs. Walton would give me fresh doughnuts—still sizzling from the hot grease. Don’t ask how I always knew when she was frying doughnuts, it was luck, I guess. Riding home in the dark, licking sugar from my lips took away some of the edge of being under the tall pines where you couldn’t even see the horse’s ears in front of you, but Chiquita—she was steady as a bulldozer—she could see just fine, even if it was pitch black and besides, she always knew the way back home, no matter how far we roamed.

The Wilburns—they had a lot of kids too but they were another matter altogether, they even adopted a couple of their sister’s youngest orphaned cousins—it seems she couldn’t handle her growing tribe. I was convinced Brenda, the redhead, was specially put on this earth to make my life miserable whenever possible. But she’s dead now. Water under the bridge. And my grandma said not to speak ill of the dead. I wonder whatever happened to her that she’d take her own life like that, behind the post office where we’d smoked our first cigarettes....

Don’t you dare tell a soul...I don’t wanna say too much more about them as I’m telling you about real people and they’re all still alive and as mean as ever, thinking they’ve come up a notch in the world and now they own the local bar—the one Darryl didn’t burn down. Them’s that aspire toward the middle class are the most vicious.

But it’s my story and I have the right to remember—even if some folks don’t like it that way, preferring revisionist history to the truth. I guess I could change all the names for the story’s sake, but then I never could think of anything better than the real thing. Besides, their real names resonate in me like bells until I get goose bumps on my heart like when I look at the sacred heart of Jesus or like when the cat licks your lips and your stomach goes all squidgy on you like with your first kiss.

Besides I’ve nothing they want, and it’s all common knowledge anyway. Except they could burn down my granma’s house—which at this point would be a favor since the cousins moved in. As I was saying, it’s really ironic, as Darryl, the eldest kid, proceeded to burn down half the Valley, leaving us with no villages at all—just greasy wide spots in the road where the buildings used to stand. Darryl, he got ’em all, only no one could prove he did it.

The Lagunitas ice cream parlor, both train stations, and the Forest Knolls store with its covered boardwalk—which was a cryin’ shame as they were just like props out of a western movie, only they were real, not fake. But all that pyrotechnics put poor Harry Bolton right out of business.

Harry, a newcomer with money to burn, fell in love with the vintage buildings and had big plans for the Valley long before Marin was “discovered.” It was pretty exciting while it lasted. We even forgave him for building his monstrosity of a house on Horse Hill at the foot of Arroyo Road. It was real cool, with a fake waterfall inside it.

But Darryl really fixed his wagon. Wherever Darryl went, buildings mysteriously burned down. I bet he burned down half the River. Maybe it’s because his father sold firewood, I don’t know. Why, when he was a young child, he even burned down his own family home. Only problem is, everyone was still at home when it happened. That was when it all started, when we knew something quite right, but everyone said he was just a child—couldn’t have known what he was doing—except two youngest brothers also died in the fire.

I remember Mr. Begley coming around collecting clothes and mattresses for the Wilburn family—on account of him having a truck. It was a baby blue Ford and it looked so odd without its camper shell and its vegetables all in neat rows. Instead, all our discarded belongings were stacked up naked like in the movie, “The Grapes of Wrath.”

I didn’t want to give up my favorite old quilt as it was my grandpa’s and he was dead… but Grandma said I had to, ’cause there was folks out there less fortunate than us. But Darryl knew what he was doing alright when he burned down the store, ’cause he did it a third time too. Any empty building seemed to be fair game.

Someone later said that one of the new owners of the Lagunitas Store banked on Darryl's firebrand reputation to burn down the Lagunitas Store and collect the insurance. Stories have a way of coming out eventually. Darryl got blamed for it just the same.

Now, I ain’t sayin’ Darryl did it, but when McAulliff’s bar burned down, that was the worst loss of all, ’cause Teddy Roosevelt used to stop there after huntin’ and they say Maple Leaf Rag was composed on that piano. Someone was burning down all our heritage until there was nothing left. Now some fancy-ass contractor lives there—says he restores historic buildings and all that, but I see he hasn’t bothered to restore McAulliff’s.

Anyway, up the hill from McAulliff’s, that was where Mrs. Begley and her whole tribe of kids lived—all in ragged Ma Joad clothes and that wall-to-wall dirt on their faces made their eyes seem especially watery and puckery on account of the Pink Eye—they were like sour grapes when you bit them in two. You just wanted to squeeze their eyes until the dirt made runnels down their cheeks.

Mr. Begley—who sold us vegetables from his camper truck, he was nice—he sometimes gave us kids the small wilted carrots. We’d all pretend we were Bugs Bunny and say: Hey, what’s up. Doc? and munching like demented rabbits. Here the Begleys had no money at all, and he was giving us the stuff he needed to sell. Dinner at the Begleys consisted of lots of rice and vegetables. That’s the first time I ever ate zucchini with catsup.

Now, Mack’s mom, Mrs. LaRoche… I sorta lost count of how many kids she had—maybe ten? twelve? Anyway, Mack—he was an altar boy along with Mark French and Johnny Hoffmann—they used to finish off the sacrificial wine on the sly when Father Connery got done with it. But Mack was murdered by the Zebra Killer and later on, his little brother went crazy, killing an old lady he was robbing for dope money. The hardest thing about his trial was that I had friends on both sides of that courtroom. He pleaded insanity.

Come to think of it, it seems like there was something not quite right about most of the youngest kids in all those big families. It’s hard to say whether it was genetics giving out, or that it was the mothers who were just plain old worn out after raising and refereeing a baker’s dozen of kids squabbling and carrying on like banshees—with the babies literally getting away with murder.

My grandma, she only had eight kids, and the only one who was really crazy was my mom. Two of my aunts are a bit crazy too, but everyone thinks they’re perfectly normal—which is much scarier than having a bonafide crazy mom. We call them The Bags on account of the cavernous naugahyde purses they carry—you could furnish entire bathroom suites with them.

At least everything’s out in the open with my mom. I didn’t see very much of her as she was always off to Hollywood or Vegas—working for Frank Sinatra doing the showgirl costumes. Mostly feathers and beads. Yes, Sinatra. Old Blue Eyes himself. She said he was real nice; had a drink with him. She knew people like that.

Sometimes it was off to Napa State Hospital too. So it was hard to tell fact from fiction…. Remind me to tell you sometime about Tommy Smothers and Sterling Hayden—they used to baby-sit me over at the Gate Theatre… but that’s another story…. Also, remind me to tell you about the time my baby cousin visited Jerry Garcia’s medicine cabinet on Resaca and had to get her stomach pumped too...

Where was I? Oh, yeah, babies. Anyway, I hardly ever saw any of the moms at the communion rail who weren’t expecting It was as if there were this invisible line across the Valley at the Nicasio turn-off where the big families began. We were all segregated out in second grade when the nuns came and asked us Catholics to raise our hands and there we were, branded from the San Geronimo and Woodacre kids who came from small families and usually had their fathers living with them.

My mom must have had something of the bad Valley seed with her as she once sent me home a baby brother which I didn’t particularly want. Home was with my grandma. My mom was always wild, bucking what my grandma said about sticking to your own kind—you know, race, religion, and all.

My mom, she was like a cat always dropping litters—most of them died—two more lived, but I don’t want to talk about them. One was adopted by an aunt but wound up in Pelican Bay and the other lives in Azuma somewheres—see, he has cerebral palsey and was in a wheelchair—he was kidnapped by the state. That’s what made my mother crazy.

‘Course, I never actually told a soul that she was crazy. I said she was an actress in Hollywood, which was true, and she was in It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad World with Jack Lemmon—but she was pretty hard to spot in that crowd scene.

Anyway, the state, they lied about stealin’ the baby and my mom spent 25 years looking to find that poor child. She knew that he existed, I mean, she gave birth to him and that’s something you’re not likely to forget—even if you were crazy.

He—Billy Panis, the baby, he was named after this Filipino guy she married so that he could get a green card— he made costumes too—but some gay lover murdered him. It was in all the papers. I once helped sew beads on Miss Korea and Miss Universe’s dresses—they were like angel wings.

Anyway, Billy, he eventually found her when he was an adult and the laws changed, but by then, it was way too late. She was just too used to being crazy. I think it was 60 Minutes or some TV show like that who wanted to do a story on the reunion and all, but I don’t think middle America was quite ready for us. Even we were never quite ready for us, ourselves. Where was I? Oh yeah, I was telling you about my first major crush, on Dennis De la Ventana….

Once a week, I used to love waiting out at the fence post by the bend in the road, for Duane's father, Dean, who was the milkman. He always had something for me: a candy or a kind word. But in winter it was just too hard to get up that early and sometimes the milk would freeze in the bottles and the cream would push up the little paper flap that said “Lucas Valley Dairy” on it, and all the cats would be lined up around the three bottles licking away at the little white pillars of cream while fighting off the birds.

My grandma always got three bottles. If one went off, she made these cottage cheese pancakes for dinner—especially during Lent. One time I ordered orange juice from him but she made me give it back ’cause we couldn’t pay for it. You could get eggs too but we got ours’ from Mary Bianchi.

Dean—he looked like Dean Martin—he used to drive around in this big white convertible with red seats—it was like a steamboat. Sometimes he’d pick up Duane and ‘Lupe after school and give us rides home. But one night after the bars closed, Dean, he flipped that big white convertible on the hill at Lucas Valley Road, and that was that. They say it was a closed casket ceremony.

I was surprised to see Duane in school the next day. Didn’t know what to say to him. I mean, what do you say to someone whose father had to be scraped off the road with a spatula? But Duane, he wore this black sweater with a big purple band like arms wrapped around his chest and carefully patted his hair. That was when I decided purple was my favorite color. I was a little in love with death and wanted to embrace the color of mourning, or of forgiveness, more like it.

But after that, things began to change, everything unraveled and ‘Lupe’s family moved away, into town. I was so lonely without my best friend. The others didn’t quite fill the void that ’Lupe had left. And I never even got to kiss Duane, not even once.

10/31/2001
rev © 2002 Maureen Hurley